OAKLAND -- On the night before disgraced Oakland police Officer Frank Vazquez disappeared in November 2000, he called attorney Michael Rains in a rage. In a profanity-laced tirade, Vazquez said he feared his fate as one of the four Oakland cops caught up in the infamous police brutality case known as the Riders. "They're not going to give us a fair trial," Rains remembers Vazquez screaming into the phone. "I'm not going to rot in prison." Twelve years later, Vazquez is still on the run, an enduring symbol of Oakland's decadelong failure to fix a Police Department ripped apart by...

LUSIKISIKI, SOUTH AFRICA—The news arrived in this remote African village at night, like a digital bolt from the star-filled sky — landing with the “ping” of a text message. It woke Nomkhitha Sompeta from her sleep, sent her scrambling in the dark for her phone, and left her staring into its luminous screen. “Biza has passed away,” the message read. Her brother was dead. More than 700 kilometres away, 36-year-old Mzukisi Sompeta — “Biza” to his friends — had been shot to death with 33 other striking miners in a standoff with police at a place called Marikana, in a...

"Can we deny that Cape Town is still the most racist city in South Africa?" asks Kenneth Lukuko, in an essay contained in the SA reconciliation barometer survey (pdf) published on Thursday. "Perhaps we can't." During Nelson Mandela's presidency, he notes, "it was the only city in which he was met with a placard that referred to him with the K-word [the taboo term "kaffir"]. And it has taken Cape Town longer than anywhere else in the country to name a major public space or amenity after Mandela, although it is the city associated most closely with his incarceration, as...

Two-thirds of people who have voted in the polling associated with selecting Time magazineâ€™s person of the year say they do not want Sandra Fluke chosen as its Person of the Year.Time magazine doesnâ€™t provide the raw voting totals but the results, so far, show 66.52 percent of those voting say â€śNo wayâ€ť to the pro-abortion birth control activist as its Person of the Year while just 33.48 percent of voters say she deserves the title.The pro-life movement was up in arms when Flukeâ€™s name was included among the list of those Time said had been nominated as potential Person...

How will the labor movement rebound from two years of defeats in what had been home turf for unionism? Politico previews their strategy to organize efforts to defeat Republicans in key gubernatorial elections in 2013 and 2014: Labor unions, stung by an unexpected setback in Michigan, where Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed a right-to-work law Tuesday limiting their ability to collect dues, are eyeing a large-scale counteroffensive against the conservative state leaders who have slashed away at union power since the 2010 midterm elections.For national labor groups, the upcoming gubernatorial elections in 2013 and 2014 may be a greater test...

On the same day the US government announced that al Qaeda in Iraq's Al Nusrah Front was a terrorist organization, Al Nusrah and nine other jihadist groups banded together in the Syrian province of Deir al Zour and formed a Mujahideen Shura Council. The 10 jihadist groups, headed by the Al Nusrah Front, released a statement yesterday announcing the council's formation "on jihadist forums and pro-Syrian resistance social networking sites," according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which obtained and translated the message. "The jihadi Islamic brigades in the city of proud Deir al Zour in the Levant of Islam...

The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

Israeli and Jewish officials in Denmark on Wednesday warned Jews to avoid openly wearing religious symbols and dress when moving about Copenhagen amid rising anti-Israeli sentiments. "We advise Israelis who come to Denmark and want to go to the synagogue to wait to don their skull caps until they enter the building and not to wear them in the street, irrespective of whether the areas they are visiting are seen as being safe," Israel's ambassador to Denmark, Arthur Avnon, told AFP. Avnon added that visitors were also advised not to "speak Hebrew loudly" or demonstrably wear Star of David jewelry,...

Obama administration launches housing PSA Comments () By BYRON TAU | 12/12/12 6:33 AM EST The Obama administration is launching a new public service announcement campaign aimed at struggling homeowners. “While communities across the country are beginning to recover from an unprecedented housing crisis, too many families are still struggling with their mortgage payments and are unsure of where to turn for help,” said Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance Mary Miller in a statement. “Millions of homeowners have gotten help to avoid foreclosure since 2009. We want to make sure struggling homeowners know today that there are free government resources...

Track Palin, the eldest son of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, is reportedly ending his marriage to Britta Hanson after a year and a half. The couple, who were former high-school sweethearts, are jointly petitioning for divorce, reports TMZ. Shortly after they got married, Track, now 23, and Britta, 22, announced the arrival of their first child, a girl named Kyla Grace Palin. Track is an Army Reservist who spent a year deployed in Iraq with a Ft. Wainwright Stryker Brigade. At the time of his marriage it was reported that he had planned to study at the University of...

A proposed new handbook for Americans serving in Afghanistan warns them not to speak ill about the Taliban, advocate women’s rights or criticize pedophilia, and the general in charge is not happy with it. The draft of the newest Army handbook seems to suggest that ignorance of Afghan culture is to blame for deadly attacks by Afghan soldiers against the coalition forces, according to The Wall Street Journal, which got a peek at the 75-page document. But its message of walking on eggshells around the locals is not going over well with U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the top military...

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez employed as an unpaid intern in his Senate office an illegal immigrant who was a registered sex offender, now under arrest by immigration authorities, The Associated Press has learned. The Homeland Security Department instructed federal agents not to arrest him until after Election Day, a U.S. official involved in the case told the AP.

On “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday, Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward highlighted the internal struggles of the Democratic Party in the ongoing effort to avert the fiscal cliff. Woodward, the author of “The Price of Politics,” reminded viewers that President Barack Obama in particular is at odds with Nancy Pelosi and some Democrats in the House. “[Obama] is muscling his way through this,” Woodward said. “He has to. He has to lead his group. He’s got the problem of the civil war in the Republican Party. There’s a civil war in the Democratic Party. You had Nancy Pelosi on,...

Shrewsbury resident Carl Lund. Northborough, MA – When Carl Lund saw a table set up on Main Street in Northborough on Friday, Dec. 7, he was “disgusted” he said, to see a poster of President Barack Obama, depicted as Adolf Hitler, prominently displayed. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Lund, a resident of Shrewsbury and a Vietnam veteran, said. Lund then got into a verbal confrontation with the two men manning the table, who Northborough police identified as Ian Brinkley and Jared Caskill. “[Brinkley and Caskill] claimed it was a peaceful, political display with literature,” Lund said. “I...

SNIPPET: "Two people are dead, including a TSA Agent, after a domestic murder-suicide. Sunday morning Cleveland Police were called to the Riveredge Parking Lot behind the 100th Bomb Group Restaurant, where airline and airport employees park. Investigators say 28-year-old Ahmad Alkahder followed his estranged wife, identified as 20-year-old Kimberly Alkahder, to work at Hopkins Airport. Airport reps say he got in by piggy-backing her at the parking lot gate. There isn't any security there, only parking lot attendants."

If you head down the beach this week, or wander along the edges of San Francisco Bay, you may just be witnessing California's future. The ocean is getting closer. --snip-- The gravitational tug of the moon and sun, not climate change, is responsible for the extreme tides. But volunteers with cameras across the state are using the event to document what California could look like in the coming decades as the warming earth continues to raise sea levels.

In this day and age, the 18- to 34-year-old crowd have lived up to their reputation as perpetual renters. Most blame the trend on the housing crisis, which led so many homeowners to downsize and stunted the home buying power of younger consumers. But whatever trauma the Great Recession had on the minds of millennials, it hasn't stymied their hopes for owning a home of their own one day, a new study shows. Real estate tracker Trulia found more than 90 pecent of millennial renters plan on buying a home in the next two years. The question is whether they'll...

Virginia Rep. Jim Moran's office has another statement about his son's arrest for assaulting his girlfriend in Columbia Heights earlier this month. And it turns out it was all an accident, according to Moran, despite his son's guilty plea to assault. "The situation was an accident," Moran spokeswoman Anne Hughes writes in an email, adding that both Moran and his girlfriend testified to that in court. "Patrick didn't hit or shove her."

Spotted just two days ago, it came zipping toward us inside the moon's orbitA newfound asteroid gave Earth a close shave early today, zipping between our planet and the moon just two days after astronomers first spotted it. The near-Earth asteroid 2012 XE54, which was discovered Sunday, came within 140,000 miles (230,000 kilometers) of our planet at about 5 a.m. EST Tuesday, researchers said. For comparison, the moon orbits Earth at an average distance of 240,000 miles or so (386,000 km). Astronomers estimate that 2012 XE54 is about 120 feet (36 meters) wide — big enough to cause substantial damage...

CNSNews.com) – Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said Tuesday the U.S. has made it increasingly difficult for Hezbollah terrorists and their supporters to cross the U.S.-Mexico border--but there is still more work to do to make the border secure. However, Lieberman also warned that we don't want to lose American freedom by trying to keep terrorist from crossing the border from Mexico into the U.S. “The security’s better on the U.S.-Mexican border than it has been before in terms of terrorists’ capacity to break through our borders in the south, but we still...

Live video from a drone flying over the U.S. Consulate during the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, was monitored at a Defense Department facility, but was not fed to the White House, senior officials say.

Not so many moons ago, President Obama urged us all to "make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds." He Who Heals advocated "a more civil and honest public discourse" in the wake of the January 2011 Tucson massacre. As usual, though, the White House has granted Big Labor bullies a permanent waiver from the lofty edicts it issues to everyone else. This week, menacing union goons unleashed threats, profanity and punches in Michigan, which is now poised to become a "right-to-work" state. Obama met the initial outbreak of...

<p>The Associated Press has learned that a registered sex offender working as an unpaid intern for Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey is facing deportation after being arrested by federal immigration authorities.</p>

MADRID (AP) — Spanish authorities say they have arrested a Panamanian woman arriving at Barcelona airport with 1.38 kilograms (3 pounds) of cocaine concealed in breast implants. The Interior Ministry said Wednesday that border police noticed fresh scars and blood-stained gauze on her chest as well as pale patches beneath her skin.

The masked gunman who killed two people in the crowded Clackamas Town Center mall in suburban Portland, Ore., was identified today as Jacob Tyler Roberts. Roberts, 22, was armed with a stolen AR-15 semi-automatic weapon, Sheriff Craig Roberts told a news conference today. He was not wearing a bullet-proof vest as previously reported.

Palazzo, Venetian welcome veterans to Las Vegas in style By Marco Villarreal CREATED Dec. 5, 2012 Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- It's the season of giving and it's especially nice when the people on the receiving end have already given so much to protect our nation. Wounded war veterans were given a well-deserved "thank you" at the Palazzo Wednesday afternoon. Joined with the Armed Forced Foundation, veterans were greeted at the hotel with applause and cheers from hundreds of team members from the Palazzo and the Venetian. Veterans came in with close family and loved ones; some physically supported or...

White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2043, according to new census projections, part of a historic shift that is already reshaping the nation's schools, workforce and electorate. The official projection, released Wednesday by the Census Bureau, now places the tipping point for the white majority a year later than previous estimates, which were made before the impact of the recent economic downturn was fully known. America continues to grow and become more diverse due to higher birth rates among minorities, particularly for Hispanics who entered the U.S. at the height of the immigration boom...

Patrick Moran, the son of Democratic Virginia Rep. Jim Moran, is having a bad year. First, undercover video operative James O'Keefe caught him on tape half-heartedly discussing how to commit voter fraud...while acting as the field director for his dad's campaign. Now Moran's taken a more criminal turn, pleading guilty earlier today to allegedly beating up his girlfriend outside a Columbia Heights bar. SNIP In a statement to Washington City Paper, Rep. Moran described his son and his girlfriend as "good kids." "I hope their privacy will be respected," the congressman said. "They look forward to putting this embarrassing situation...

Are higher taxes inevitable? If they are, Senator Rand Paul wants no Republican fingerprints on them. Last night, he told Greta van Susteren on Fox News that House Republicans should pass a bill with their specific plan to cut spending and fix the tax code to address the fiscal-cliff issues, and dare the Senate to take it up. If Democrats refuse, then Paul wants the House to hold a vote on the Democratic plan, with Republicans voting "present" to allow Democrats to pass the bill. That way, the economic damage from tax hikes will be totally owned by Democrats, and...

Police interrupted a church service Sunday morning when neighbors called about noise--again. Just last week Rehoboth United Assemblies Church was fined $700 for noise citations. At that time, church leaders said they would monitor the noise during their worship.

(Source: inautonews.com) A123 could lose the rest of its $249 million grant We can put this under the "Duh" files: A123 Systems won't receive the remaining amount of its federal grant if Wanxiang Group is approved as the new owner. According to Reuters, which spoke to an unnamed official from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the DOE will cut A123 off from its $249 million grant the company received in 2009. A123 has only used $133 million of the grant so far. The official, who noted that all parties were aware of this consequence during last weekend's auction of A123, said...

In the scramble to make the GOP more diverse, a lot of people are looking at Asian Americans, whom many believe are a natural constituency for the party. I would love it if Asian Americans converted en masse to the Republican party, but the challenge for Republicans is harder than many appreciate. President Obama did spectacularly well with Asian Americans, garnering nearly three-quarters of their vote. This runs counter to a lot of conventional wisdom on both the left and the right. On average, family income is higher and poverty is lower among Asian Americans than among non-Latino whites. Entrepreneurship,...

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, spoke to NRO yesterday morning about the committee’s new Growth and Opportunity Project, which is led by a five-member panel that will review the operations and strategies of the RNC and Republican party as a whole. The members of that panel are Sally Bradshaw, a veteran adviser to former Florida governor Jeb Bush; Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush; and three RNC committee members — Zori Fonalledas of Puerto Rico, Henry Barbour of Mississippi, and Glenn McCall of South Carolina.

The long-awaited review of a controversial study on the drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” was released today, and it finds numerous errors and flaws with how the study was conducted and released, as well as University of Texas policies for disclosing conflicts of interest. The head author of the study, Dr. Charles “Chip” Groat, has retired in the wake of the controversy, and the head of the Energy Institute that released it, Dr. Raymond Orbach, has resigned as head of the Institute, the University announced today. The original report by UT Austin’s Energy Institute, ‘Fact-Based Regulation for...

Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have fired Scud missiles at rebel fighters in recent days, Obama administration officials said on Wednesday. The move represents a significant escalation in the fighting, which has already killed more than 40,000 civilians in a nearly two-year-old conflict that has threatened to destabilize the Middle East. One American official, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing classified information, said that missiles had been fired from the Damascus area at targets in northern Syria. “The total is number is probably north of six now,” said another American official, and that the...

All three networks on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning ignored the violent assaults by union protesters in Michigan, instead vaguely insisting that picketers were simply "voicing their anger" at the "showdown raging in the heartland."

[Sowell's book] challenges many of the long-prevailing assumptions about blacks, about Jews, about Germans, about slavery, and about education. Plainly written, powerfully reasoned, and backed with a startling array of documented facts, Black Rednecks and White Liberals takes on not only the trendy intellectuals of our times but also such historic interpreters of American life as Alexis de Tocqueville and Frederick Law Olmsted. In a series of long essays, this book presents an in-depth look at key beliefs behind many mistaken and dangerous actions, policies, and trends. It presents eye-opening insights into the historical development of the ghetto culture that...

The pro-union broadcast networks are deliberately censoring footage of thuggish union violence directed at conservatives. If a Tea Partier had physically assaulted a liberal journalist or ripped down a structure occupied by a liberal organization all on video, the footage would be broadcast on an endless loop.

Minutes before Michigan Governor Snyder signed the 'Right-To-Work' bill into law... ... Teamsters head Jimmy Hoffa appeared on CNN, as seen in the clip below, warning that: "This is just the first round of a battle that's going to divide this state. We're going to have a civil war," ...as the bill to weaken unions' power is passed. If Hoffa is right, look for Michigan GDP to soar: after all it is one of the more Keynesian states in the union. Via AP: Michigan Gov. Snyder signs right-to-work bills LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has signed right-to-work...

NBC Sports talker Bob Costas caught plenty of heat for launching into an anti-gun rant in the wake of the murder/suicide committed by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. Last night, Costas waded into the subject once more, but this time he brought up the George Zimmerman case to buttress his points. "What does common sense tell you about the likelihood of that confrontation ever taking place in the first place if George Zimmerman was not carrying a gun?" Not so fast. Costas' own network is being sued for shoddy journalism involving Zimmerman's case. That didn't prevent the sportscaster from...

December 12, 2012 Heckuva job: Michigan union thugs destroyed hot dog vendorÂ’s cart Michele Malkin This is small business owner Clint Tarver of Lansing, Michigan. He was caught in the violent chaos that erupted when union thugs attacked the Americans for Prosperity tent on the capitol grounds yesterday during the right-to-work debate. His hot dog stand was destroyed. Velvet Hammer reports that the thugs shouted â€śUncle Tomâ€ť and â€śniggerâ€ť at Tarver.Dana Loesch has more on the story and how to help.

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A top Democratic leader Wednesday accused House Speaker John Boehner of stringing out "fiscal cliff" negotiations with President Obama until after he wins his speakership reelection, when he would then cave in to Democratic demands to get a deal done without a majority of House Republican support. "I hope he wouldn't avoid the tough decisions simply to take us into January and after his swearing-in, but I've become increasingly worried that that is exactly what's going on," charged Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen. "I would hope that he would put the interests of getting an agreement before House Republican politics,"...

In the early 1980s, Ford and Chrysler were struggling to make ends meet and Chrysler needed a government bailout to keep going. General Motors' predicament in the 1980s wasn't life threatening so it continued along its merry way without making significant changes. I don't remember which automaker it was, but in the early 1980s one of the Big Three asked its union workers in Michigan to take a pay cut so that it could continue to operate. The unions were told that if they didn't accept a pay cut, the firm would move production to Texas. The unions considered the...

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency has notified Congress that it intends to sell Israel some 6,900 tail kits which can turn "dumb" bombs into satellite-guided "smart bombs," including bombs capable of penetrating hardened targets, Bloomberg Business Week reported. Some of the hardened targets one would immediately think about are those underground nuclear plants the Iranian government has been so chatty about this past decade or so. According to BBW, the sale will includes 1,725 all-weather satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM tail kits with BLU-109 bombs, which are 2,000-pound, hard-target penetrators. Bombs delivered this way are among the most...

Dean: Republicans "Have To Change Their Philosophy" Of "Beating Up" On Gays, Immigrants & Women Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean says Republicans will have to change their philosophy and not just their ground game in order to win in the future. Dean says conservatives can not sell hate of women, gays and immigrants and expect to win elections. VIDEO

New discoveries and technological advances have increased the oil industry's ability to increase production in recent years, pushing global maximum oil production to 98 million barrels per day for longer than initially expected, Total SA's Chairman and Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie said Tuesday. Global oil production should plateau at that level for some time before dropping as reserves gradually deplete, de Margerie said during a meeting with the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris. Technological constraints led the French oil major to estimate in 2007 that the "peak oil" production rate would be at around 95 million barrels per day,...

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) division of Calgary-based Ferus LP successfully completed in October what the company believes to be the first-ever hydraulic fracturing operation utilizing liquefied natural gas (LNG) as engine fuel in North America. Ferus' LNG Division was engaged by a major oil and gas service company in the United States to conduct the pilot project, which involved six dual-fuel 2,250 horsepower pressure pumper units, powered by LNG, to stimulate well performance in the south Texas Eagle Ford shale. The dual fuel systems allow for natural gas and diesel to be consumed simultaneously with no decrease in performance,...